


Gardener Sprout

by PeopleGoBoom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Career, Career Change, Friendship, Hufflepuff Pride, Tea, Work, house hufflepuff, unafraid of toil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 04:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10779963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeopleGoBoom/pseuds/PeopleGoBoom
Summary: "Slytherin tricks from my Hufflepuff head of house!” Minerva blurted.“Oh, surely not. I am fairly certain Sinistra would have found a way to make you promote her in the process, whereas all I need is a demotion. I just want work I can find joy in again."





	Gardener Sprout

Pomona Sprout strode up the stairs as they swung to connect with the door to the headmistress' office. This was her home, she thought fiercely. The place that had welcomed her, toddler on arm, some thirty-seven years earlier. The place that had given her a chance, a job, a life. She had spent more of her life here than all other places put together. She had raised her son here. There was no way she was leaving. This was her ground to stand.

There was also no way she was letting things go on the way they had for the last four years. She didn't like confrontation much, but she was ready to stand up for what was right, and that included when she was the one to benefit. She wasn't afraid to confront Headmistress McGonnagal, her boss, even though she certainly wasn't in the habit of doing so. What she had done time and time again, though, which had always gone well enough, was confronting her best friend Minerva. And yet this was what scared her now. Her boss was fair and demanding. Her friend… had a temper. 

She was ready for this meeting, though. The grounds would remain her home. She would find joy in her work again. She would. Not dealing with students for the whole work day. Just every now and then. Mostly, just quiet. And being outside. 

As she had expected, Minerva asked Pomona to stay on as herbology professor and head of house Hufflepuff for another year. She sighed and took a deep breath. Confrontation it was, then.

“Another year was last year, Minerva.”

“I know that, and I'm so very sorry, but there is just no way to make it happen right now. I really need you in this position. I would be happy to find something else for you to do here, of course, that is not where the problem lies. The problem is that we will have replacements for your job in a year or so, they just need a bit more… well, seasoning.”

“Longbottom is ready to take over as herbology professor. He was ready last year too.”

“I disagree. Just because he feels ready does not mean that he is.”

“You misunderstand me. I am not describing his eagerness, I am giving you my professional evaluation as the person who has worked the most closely with him for the last four years. He is ready for this. He is the one bringing vitality to the teaching now, but he is also steady and responsible. I couldn't have wished for a better replacement, and Minerva, you must know I do not say that lightly, or for selfish reasons.”

“Of course I know that,” Minerva acknowledged, busying herself with pouring more tea. 

“And professor Sage would do an excellent job as head of house. She has been here long enough to be settled, but she is still young and has that fresh outlook. I think she will be very good for Hufflepuff.”

“She is rather young still, just 29. The youngest teacher we ever hired, at 24. She might need some more seasoning. And even if Longbottom is as ready as you think he is, we do need a full professor to be head of house. You see, Pomona, much as I want to I simply cannot give you what you are asking.”

Pomona drained her tea and poured herself another cup, milk first. This was it, then. She had hoped it wouldn't come to this.

“I'm very sorry, Minerva, but you can and you will. You see, I could just take my ministry pension and leave –”

“Are you blackmailing me, Pomona? You, of all people?” That betrayed look. She hadn't wanted to ever see that look again.

“No, and please hear me out before you react. I could do that, but that is not what I want. I want to stay here at Hogwarts. However, for the last four years I have also had the option of leaving. I am of the age where I can choose a ministry pension. I could find a nice hut in Hogsmeade, plant a garden to tend, come up to the castle to have tea with you and with Hagrid or to support my house when there was a quidditch game. It would be a decent life, and I do not fear it, but I have years of work in me yet. I'm not eager to be one of those little old ladies just yet.”

Her friend was fidgeting, clearly restless, waiting for her to get to the point. Well, then. 

“There is also the option of getting the ministry pension part-time. And when I leave this office I will owl them and ask them for a 30% pension. Which means I am still your employee, but you cannot demand any more than 70% work hours of me. Which is not enough to teach.”

“Which is exactly not enough to teach! You've calculated –”

“Just so. And while you could try to fire me –”

“I wouldn't! You can't believe I would do that to you!”

“I don't believe that, I am simply saying that you could try, but I don't think the ministry would be happy with a 'she served well for thirty-seven years but then one day she pissed me off' as a reason for letting me go. So you see, you're just going to have to do what I suggest this one time. The only question is whether or not you will find me work I enjoy. I trust you will, but if you want a few days to cool down first –”

“I want no such thing! I want you to realise you are putting me in an extremely uncomfortable position!” Minerva said, anger flashing in her eyes. Pomona held firm. 

“Well, you have put me in an uncomfortable position for the last four years. I was patient with that because it was necessary, or should I say I was patient as long as I thought you would do your uttermost to solve it. I'm sorry to force your hand like this, but I am simply not willing to do a bad job anymore.”

“A bad job! How can you say such a thing? You are one of the best teachers I have here!”

“I appreciate that, and I even think that used to be true, but I can assure you it isn't true anymore, and it hasn't been true for years. I feel my lacks sorely, and I have tried to communicate them to you in the conventional ways, to no avail.”

“So now you're forcing me like this. Slytherin tricks from my Hufflepuff head of house!” Minerva blurted. 

“Oh, surely not. I am fairly certain Sinistra would have found a way to make you promote her in the process, whereas all I need is a demotion. I just want work I can find joy in again. This is very much the badger way, I assure you, not that of the snake. And I am sure professor Sage will culture the Hufflepuffs in a way I just can't anymore.”

“Culture the Hufflepuffs, well, that's a nice way of putting it,” the other woman grumbled. 

“I rather think it is. Didn't you do that, when you were head of house?”

“No, I just herded cats, to the best of my ability,” the Gryffindor said drily.

“That's a bit defeatist, but I see why you would think that would challenge professor Sage. Although I must say she deals very well with students of all houses.”

“Well, you make it sound like your students are like your potted plants. Maybe Hufflepuffs are rather like potted plants, though. Just give them sunshine and nutrition, and then throw knowledge at them and see if something sticks, which it will if you are really lucky. Some school I am running!”

“Come, Minerva, you can't talk like that! This is inappropriate in so many ways. Talking about a quarter of the student mass like that! This can't reflect your teaching experience, surely! It certainly does not match mine! And incidentally, have you seen some of the plants I work with? Clearly you know nothing about –”

“Are you saying I am incompetent?!”

“Of course I'm not saying that.”

“It's my job to know what is going on at this school, and you really seemed to say I didn't.”

“No one could know everything that goes on in this school. I would want you to remember some things I think you do know, though, and remember them even when you lose your temper.”

“I am not losing –” Minerva was a clever enough woman to not finish that sentence. Instead she took a deep breath and finished her tea, pouring more. The two women sit in silence for a minute. This is probably going to be the closest to an admission that this is an argument that she is going to get, Pomona thinks. Minerva has her faults, and not owning to ever losing her temper, or to having one in the first place, is certainly one of them. Eventually Pomona breaks the silence:

“I just want to feel joy in my work again,” she says, firmly, quietly.

“You should have told me how unhappy you were!” her friend flared. 

“I have told you what I wanted for years, and at both our last end of term talks I said I had been unhappy with teaching for a long time and that I am not doing a good job anymore. You have known for years, you just seemed to have other priorities.”

“Right,” Minerva conceded, squeezing her eyes shut. “I'm afraid I rather did. I'm sorry, Pomona.”

“It's alright. Just let me set my boundaries, and we're all good.” 

“Yes. I suppose that was necessary. However, I'm just not convinced Longbottom is ready to be full professor – it's a big responsibility, as you know better than anyone.”

“You see him as a boy still because you haven't worked closely with him. He is ready, and as I have been telling you, he is the one making the teaching interesting for the children ever since he started here. He has been doing the work you're afraid he won't be able to do for years. He is ready for this, I am telling you. I truly am sorry to force your hand, but there it is.”

“I suppose I assumed if you were really unhappy you would have quit and collected your ministry pension already.”

“I want to work, though, I just want it to be work I can enjoy and be good at, which isn't what it used to be. I want to stay here and be useful. And Hogwarts is my home.”

“Very well. And you can't stay on as head of house? No, of course, we need that to be a full professor. You thought of that too, didn't you. Oh, bother.”

“Well, I know for a fact professor Sage will do a lot better than I can. Both youth culture and house culture is always changing, as you know, and while it looks to me like these days they are very good changes for the most part, I find myself unable to keep up. Professor Sage is so much younger, she will be able to understand this generation a lot better than I can.”

“Don't make yourself sound old, I am older than you are.”

“I know, and good for you on feeling it less keenly than I do, but we are old enough to be these children's grandmothers. Sometimes we have to put a lot more effort into understanding them than someone closer to their own age would have to, and with rather less success. Which we both do as best we can, but I really do hate to do a job that I know other people could do better, and that goes for both head of house and the teaching.”

Minerva sighed. 

“Tell me straight, Pomona,” she demanded, “do you think I am getting too old for my job too?”

“No,” she said, refraining from pointing out that her friend should know she always told things straight, “you seem to be doing very well, generally. And what is more, you are still enjoying yourself, aren't you? Just because I am feeling old is no imperative for you to do the same. And even I still have loads of years of work in me, I just won't do the same job I have been doing for thirty-seven years anymore.”

“And you really feel that professor Sage is up to the task?”

“I do. For the five years she's been teaching potions here the students has absolutely loved her. She didn't even have that horrible, clumsy first year as most of us do, in which things are messy and everyone complains about you and, well.”

Minerva's smile looked like it didn't know if it was a grimace or of warmth. That first year had been pretty bad, for both of them. They both knew to what extent – they had found support in each other that year, and become friends as they never had when they were in school, Minerva a year over Pomona. Pomona went on. 

“In my opinion, Salvia is not just strong at pedagogics, she really bonds with the students, which is just the thing she will need as head of Hufflepuff. I think she will do an excellent job. And as I have been saying, for the last few years my own job hasn't been stellar. Even if she falls short of my expectations, which would surprise me very much, I can guarantee she will be an improvement.”

“Very well,” her boss relents. “What is it you want to do for Hogwarts for the foreseeable future?”

“Preferably gardening,” Pomona says. “But anything with rather less focus on social interaction would probably work out.”

“Gardening it is,” Minerva says, smiling warmly. “Enjoy your demotation, Gardener Sprout.”

“Oh, I will,” Pomona replies, smiling back. They sit in companionable silence for a while, looking into each other's eyes now and then, finishing their tea.


End file.
